AKP Watch

AKP Watch January 23rd, 2008

YouTube managed to be banned twice in Turkey within a week by having rulings from two separate courts consecutively.

The initial ruling came from Ankara Criminal Court on 17th January. Four days later, YouTube stated that they removed alleged videos and filed an appealed to lift the ban. However very same day, in another city, the Criminal Court of Sivas ruled to ban YouTube again. As of today, there are two seperate court orders to ban YouTube in Turkey.

As Turkish Traditional Media is almost totally under ruling Islamic AK Party’s control, YouTube emerged as an alternative free speech platform for opponent voices such as Yalcin Kucuk, Tuncay Ozkan and Nihat Genc. For this reason, surpression of internet based opposition is the one of highest priorities of Islamic AK Party government.

Although Turkish Courts are doing great job to silence internet based opposition, recently Islamic AK Party passed a new internet legislation to form an internet authority enabled by unrestricted powers to ban any internet site without court ruling.

Meanwhile yet another free speech platform, WordPress is still banned in Turkey since last six months.

• AK Party , Censorship , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Islamofascism , Turkey , Wordpress , YouTube
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AKP Watch October 24th, 2007

As news agencies publish pictures of eight captured Turkish soldiers, AK Party issued an executive order to cease all public broadcasting regarding recent terrorist attacks in southeastern Turkey.

Censorist Molla Akman on Duty

Head of Radio and Television Higher Authority (RTUK), Zahid Akman a.k.a Censorist Molla faxed cease and desist notices to all media companies in Turkey. As of 23rd October, Turkish Media Outlets are no longer broadcasting news or any kind of programming including commentaries about recent terrorist attacks.

Turkish Journalists Association: Blatant Censorism

Turkish Journalist Association immediatelly issued a press release and indicated that the decision is clear attempt to censor media to prevent fundamental right of citizens to access news and information.

 Erdoğan is Clueless and Paralyzed

Prime Minister  Erdoğan and rest of AK Party Cabinet feeling very desperate and clueless upon the recent attacks. The pressure from United States and Barzani preventing Erdoğan to step out the border and take action against PKK , meanwhile public outcry reached to new heights damaging Erdoğan’s reputation in Turkey. 

AK Party, once satiristicly called as Arabic Kurdish Party among nationalists, has stong ties with Barzani, the main supporter harboring PKK in Northern Iraq.

The ties are established in very high and personal level, for example, Çalık Holding, owned by Erdoğan’s son-in-law Berat Albayrak awarded billion dollars construction contracts by Barzani’s autonomous Kürdistan Authority and most of AK Party representatives from Southeastern Turkey are Kurds and under heavy influence of Barzani.

The censorship decision proved that Erdoğan decided to fight with freedom of speech instead of terrorist PKK and their supporters in Iraq.

• AK Party , AKP , Censorship , Erdogan , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Kurds , PKK , RTUK , Terrorism , Turkey , Zahid Akman
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AKP Watch September 30th, 2007

History is full of unimportant men who lived like a creep till fulfilling their destiny. When their time has come, they obey the masters and instantly became historical figures by leaving ugly scars in the face of civilization. Like Harvey Oswald who murdered Kennedy or Ogün Samast who shot Hrant Dink dead. The masters of puppets always remained unknown. But not this time!

A Radikal Islamist and AK Party Supporter

Ali Kütüklü was one of those unimportant men who fired bullets to the free speech. He is an radical islamist and a die hard supporter of AK Party, one day, told by his master’s that it’s the time to fulfill his destiny. With a little help from Fethullah Gülen’s lawyers, he went to court in eastern city of Sivas and obtained an order to block the video-sharing site because of clips that it considered insulting to President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

YouTube ban has nothing to do with Atatürk

Kütüklü and the usual suspects (AK Party Officals in Sivas and Fethullah Gülen’s sect) added Atatürk’s name to the court documents, just to cover up their mess and distract the public. Fortunately public is not fooled. AK Party and Islamist see Atatürk as an infidel and biggest enemy. It’s ironic to see Islamists who do everything possible to wipe out Atatürk legacy from Turkey, now changed their minds to protect his memory. Sounds very suspicious!

AK Party’s Crusade Against Free Speech

Since AK Party is controlling most of the major media outlets in Turkey, WordPress and YouTube became a center of political opposition, especially during the recent elections, opposition parties made a good use of internet as a free speech platform. AK Party got worried and decided to address this problem by employing a new strategy, a strategy to covertly silence the leading free speech platforms in the world. The first victims were YouTube and WordPress.

The strategy is simple: First, find a wacko/freak like Adnan Oktar or Ali Kütüklü, then covertly provide them full legal aid, send them to courts and the most importantly always have the luxury of plausible deniability: deny any connection to or awareness of such act with the AK Party.

Google/YouTube Cooperates with Islamists

It was shocking for us when YouTube announced that it’s ready cooperate with Islamist in Turkey to remove the inappropriate content out of YouTube. It’s very sad to see a very Silicon Valley/Bay Area firm Google/YouTube’s betrayed their roots and cooperate with Islamists to bash free speech.

The Bay Area was once the center progressive movement and maybe considered to be most openminded place to live, witnessed even The Free Speech Movement led by Mario Savio and his historical speech in the Sproul Hall in University of Berkeley. Now Google/YouTube -an offspring of bay area’s progressive culture- is selling out the most important principle of western civilization -the free speech- to islamists for a fistful of petro-dollars.

Remembering Sivas (Hotel Madimak) Massacre

Eastern city of Sivas was always been an stronghold for radical islamist where Sivas Massacre took place. On July 2, 1993 (not 1493 of middle ages) radical islamists provoked by AK Party’s precursor, Islamist Walfare Party (President Abdullah Gul was Vice President of Walfare Party by then) gathered around Madimak Hotel and shouted for death to the infidels. The hotel was arsoned, flames engulfed several floors causing burned alive 37 people among whom were many famous and precious musicians, poets, few foreigners, guests, staff of hotel and even 2 of the attackers.

Walfare Party deputy Şevket Kazan, an attorney voluntary signup to defend the perpetrators and it’s ironic since he later promoted and became Minister of Justice!

Recently AK Party rejected CHP proposal to turn Hotel Madımak into a museum to remember the tragedy.

• AK Party , AKP , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Islamist , Islamofascism , Opposition , Turkey , YouTube
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AKP Watch September 23rd, 2007

AK Party Opposition TV channel Kanalturk is once again targeted by the Islamist AK Party government. The channel have been shut down for six days as a penalty for Kanalturk’s broadcasts prior to July 22 general elections. The justification for the punishment was that while Kanalturk presented news about opposition parties in an objective manner, it discriminated against the ruling AKP by broadcasting PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s previous political statements and by doing so harmed his image.

Erdoğan would probably break a Guinness World Record, since he is most likely the world’s first and probably the last leader who believes his very own statements in the past is damaging his reputation and going to court for preventing the broadcast of his own speeches.

 Erasing the Past

Tayyip Erdoğan is trying to erase his past as a radical islamist by pressuring media companies to not broadcast his previous speeches.  As a part of new image building strategy, AK Party has zero tolerance those who exposing their past. Earlier journalist Sezai Şengün of Daily Star Newspaper, fined approx. $10,000 for publishing Erdoğan’s photos with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a designated terrorist by US State department, who has participated in and supported terrorist acts committed by al-Qa’ida and the Taliban.

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Censorist Molla

The suspension decision made by minister of censorship Islamist Zahid Akman, who earlier appointed by Erdoğan to head of RTUK (Islamic High Board of Radio and Television). Akman (aka Molla) is a controversial figure in Turkish media, once described as “Censorist Molla” by Serdar Turgut, the editor-in-chief of widely circulated Turkish daily Aksam, pointing out his jihadist past as a islamist sect (tarikat) member and his loyality (biat) to his former sect. Akman has a pivotal role in AK Party’s strategy to surpress opposition by abusing RTUK’s unlimited powers which even include a permanent suspension. Akman frequently inviting media executives to RTUK to attend mandatory Nazi style briefings to adjust their broadcasting policy according to AK Party terms. 

Prior to RTUK, Akman was an executive in Kanal 7, an islamist TV Channel founded by former Walfare Party which was a precursor to AK Party. Kanal 7 and their non-profit charity organisation Deniz Feneri under money laundering and terror finance investigation by German Authorities and most of Kanal 7 executives currently under arrest in Germany. (Source: Evrensel in German and Hurriyet in Turkish)

Akman previously prevented TV Channels to air the movies Brokeback Mountain and Valley of the Wolves (Kurtlar Vadisi).

• AK Party , AKP , Censorship , Erdogan , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Islamofascism , KanalTurk , Opposition , RTUK , Turkey , Zahid Akman
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AKP Watch September 2nd, 2007

AKP Watch is sick and tired to write posts about Adnan Oktar, but he is not tired to seek court orders to ban bloggers in Turkey.  It’s look like Oktar committed to be an internet celebrity, even his fame will surpass famous Mahir of 99’s.

Bad news arrived as Jim Collela wrote on his blog: [CORRECTED] “the CNN Political Ticker Blog and Flickr Blog are also blocked because of the same court order (decision no.: 2007/195) enacted by Adnan Oktar.”

AKPWatch double checked and now it’s confirmed, the CNN Blog is also affected by the recent block of WordPress by AK Party connected Islamist/Creationist cult leader Adnan Oktar (a.k.a Harun Yahya). Oktar, acting like a proxy to AK Party, obtained a court order to block WordPress in Turkey which effected all WordPress powered sites, even the ones not using wordpress.com domain name, such as CNN Political Ticker and Yahoo owned Flickr Blog.

Adnan Oktar and his infamous creationist nonsense is very populer among AK Party circles, even an AK Party’s Gaziantep MP Ahmet Uzer distributed Oktar’s 800 pages Creationist book to member of parliments. (Source: mainstream turkish newspapers,  Radikal on 27/02/07, Sabah on 03/03/07, Vatan on 02/03/07) 

When MP Ahmet Uzer defended himself, he unintentionally revealed that Oktar’s creationist book –Atlas of Creation- approved by Ministry of Culture and Turism as a scientific book. (Source: OlayMedya)

Moreover AK Party officals decided that Adnan Oktar books will be purchased by all public libraries in Turkey. Currently legendary even poet Nazim Hikmet’s book are banned in public libraries in Turkey. (Source: Hurriyet on 03/02/07 and Hurriyet on 13/01/07)

Oktar and his famous book is favored among AK Party elements, for example, AKP appointed governors writes recommendation letters to distribute the book in the schools, multiple AK Party municipals including Ankara and Istanbul provides exhibition areas, childred from primary schools brought to those exhibitions, and more surprisingly Istanbul Governor approves Oktar aide to teach creationism seminars in schools (Source: mainstream Turkish newspapers, Hurriyet on 25/06/2006 and Radikal on 11/03/2007)

The fourth largest blogging platform in the world, WordPress, still remains banned in Turkey since 15th of August 2007.

• AK Party , AKP , Adnan Oktar , Censorship , Free Speech , Freedom of Press , Harun Yahya , Islamist , Turkey
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